Alice Margatroid
Alice Margatroid is a heroic female youkai from Touhou who is known primarily for her skillful manipulation of many miniature dolls, most notably Shanghai and Hourai. One of a few known people to live in the Forest of Magic, she's a skillful magician who is also known for being a loner. She gets in many fights with Marisa Kirisame but nevertheless the two of them are acquaintances, sharing many of the same interests and even teaming up during Imperishable Night and Subterranean Animism as well as such non-canon titles as MegaMari. Alice always holds back even if it means losing due to the fact that she, unlike Marisa, is much more interested in strategy and hates having to win a fight from sheer overwhelming power. Appearance Alice has short blonde hair, orange (or blue or green depending on game appearance) eyes, and carries a black book and is accompanied by a small red-clothed doll. She wears black boots and a light blue dress with white sleeves, a white capelet and pink ribbons and a red ribbon in her hair. Personality She has a residence in the Forest of Magic. According to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, maybe since she was originally a human, even as a youkai, she has high understanding and friendship level to humans and presents a low danger level, and if someone gets lost in the forest, she also gladly gives shelter upon arriving at her house. However, Alice's house is covered all over with dolls, and since she is not very eager for conversation, it seems like she immediately flees when there is something eerie. In chapters 5-6 of Strange and Bright Nature Deity, the Three Fairies of Light accidentally arrived at her house, and Alice was hospitable to them. According to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, she does not perform the usual act of attacking humans, but she unexpectedly likes fights and upon challenged to battle, she gladly accepts. As she manipulates a great number of combat dolls, the fight is compelled to be highly outnumbered, making a difficult battle inevitable, but since she has her hands full with manipulating the dolls, that is her weakness. She does not find it enjoyable to win battles with overwhelming power, so she usually fights with power that is a little more than that of the opponent. Also, since it would be the end of the ropes if she was defeated while putting forth her true power, she does not give it her all in fights, which is similar in personality to Reimu Hakurei. In the character settings text for Imperishable Night, it was written that she was an indoors type who was often alone, but in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, the range of her place of activities is set to "any kind of place" in Gensokyo, and she also appeared in front of people in times of festivals to exhibit her skill with dolls. In each ending of Imperishable Night and Immaterial and Missing Power, she participated in banquets at the Hakurei Shrine. She also said things that hinted that she sometimes visits the library of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. According to ZUN's comments in the Music Room of Perfect Cherry Blossom, Alice is a little special as a character of the Touhou Series, and because of that, he composed her theme with renewed vigor. Relationships *Shinki (Possible re-creator) *Marisa Kirisame (Neighbor/Friend) *Shanghai (Doll) *Hourai (Doll) *Goliath Doll (Doll) Trivia *According to the Omake Notes for Mystic Square, the inspiration for Alice's grimoire came from the game Asura Blade, which features a young necromancer girl also named Alice who controls the dead with a book. *Strange and Bright Nature Deity chapter 6 has Sunny Milk attempting to lie to Alice, but accidentally blurting out the truth instead. Among her ramblings, she mentions that she's looking for a magician with a grimoire that "shines wonderfully with all the seven colors of the light". Alice does not deny this to be false. It is possible this is the in-universe explanation for her title, "Seven-Colored Puppeteer". *Being known as the "Seven-Colored Puppeteer" or "Rainbow Puppeteer", Alice apparently believes in a correlation between color and power level. During her dialogue with Reimu Hakurei in Perfect Cherry Blossom, she asserts Reimu's powers are only equal to 28.5714% (or 2/7) of her own powers, due to Reimu's outfit only consisting of two colors. This appears to be a recurring theme in Perfect Cherry Blossom, as Yukari Yakumo, Ran Yakumo and Chen are all named after colors and have relative power levels equivalent to their colors' place on the visual spectrum. *This has not be referenced in recent games though some fanart references this. *In some official material, like Imperishable Night's Prologue and Strange and Bright Nature Deity chapter 5, Alice's dolls appear to be able to act and talk independently, but according to her Perfect Memento in Strict Sense article, she hasn't yet succeeded in creating an independent doll, and a conversation between Marisa and Rinnosuke Morichika in Curiosities of Lotus Asia chapter 16 suggests that Alice just controls the dolls and pretends they are alive for her own amusement and for showing off. *Alice's alternate palette from Scarlet Weather Rhapsody resembles Hina-Ichigo, a doll from the manga series Rozen Maiden. In Touhou Hisoutensoku, she has palettes resembling the other Rozen Maiden dolls: Suiseiseki, Souseiseki, Suigintou, Shinku, Kanaria, and Kirakishou. Add the fact that, in Rozen Maiden, the aforementioned dolls are battling for the title of "Alice", the perfect doll. *Alice is the only boss who appears 3 times in a single stage: Twice as a midboss and the third as the actual boss of stage 3 in Perfect Cherry Blossom. *According to Aya Shameimaru during her interview with Eirin Yagokoro, Alice has been a recurring customer of Eirin's, coming to see her to buy a medicine she developed called Kochoumugan (Butterfly Dream Pill). The medicine guarantees its imbiber to have pleasant dreams once they fall asleep, and was even featured in an article in Aya's newspaper. The reason for purchasing this medicine or even what kinds of dreams Alice is trying to have were never revealed, but instead are left purely to speculation. However, this might be a reference to "Alice in Wonderland", from which the concept of her character is derived. *Because Alice, unlike Marisa, is much more interested in strategy and hates having to win a fight from sheer overwhelming power, she always holds back even if it means losing. *Her Mystic Square stage 3 title "Girl of Death" may be a Megami Tensei reference as there is a demon in the game known as Alice based on the Alice in Wonderland story that is known by the same title. *Alice may be related to the story of Dolls in Pseudo Paradise. A big connection between the two involve how one of the honest men died from being "nailed to a tree" despite being inside, relating to Alice's article in Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red about her nailing straw effigies to trees. Other connections include how the men stumble upon a "Western-style building deep within the forest" and how the culprit was a "beautiful blonde girl", both of which relate to Alice. Gallery Profile Other Appearances Alice_Margatroid_full_1227572.jpg|Koumajou Densetsu: Scarlet Symphony Alice_Margatroid_full_1227620.jpg|Koumajou Densetsu II: Stranger's Requiem Alice_default.png|Touhou Pocket Wars 2nd Alice_1.png|Touhou Pocket Wars 2nd (Shanghai's Cosplay) Touhoudex_Alice.png|Touhoumon/Touhou Puppet Play Touhoudex_2_Alice.png|Touhoumon 2/Touhoudex Project Touhoudex_2_AdAlice.png|Touhoumon 2/Touhoudex Project (Advent Alice) Alice_2.PNG|Touhou Pocket Wars 2nd (Old Era) Touhoudex_2_Arisu.png|Touhoumon 2/Touhoudex Project (Old Era) Fan Pics 165298.jpg|Marisa and Alice Konachan.com - 73708 alice_margatroid blonde_hair blue_eyes dress long_hair magic ribbons shanghai short_hair sky touhou.jpg Touhou.full.1598134.jpg|Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame and Alice 111837.jpg Alice.Margatroid.full.675571.jpg Merchandise griffon_alice_margatoid01.jpg griffon_alice_margatroid01.jpg griffon_alice_dolls01.jpg griffon_alice_dolls03.jpg griffon_alice_dolls05.jpg griffon_alice_dolls07.jpg toranoana_touhou_shushu02.jpg 4alice.jpg gsc_nendoroid_touhou2_06.jpg gsc_nendoroid_alice_margatroid01.jpg azone_alice_margatroid02.jpg 1alice1.jpg Theme Music/Fanmade Music Category:Touhou Heroes Category:Indie/Doujin Heroes Category:Video Game Heroes Category:Anime Heroes Category:Manga Heroes Category:Female Category:On & Off Category:Heroic Youkai Category:Chaotic Neutral Category:Shmup Heroes Category:Contradictory